As is known, the groups formed by a machine of the abovementioned type are conventionally called "sticks".
In conventional packaging, the products forming the sticks are positioned together so that their larger faces are in contact, i.e. they are disposed with their flat sides together.
Sticks have recently been introduced into the market in which the products are positioned together in an arrangement which intersects a plane which is perpendicular to the longitudinal dimension of the groups.
Using the known techniques, the sticks of the first and the second types described above are often produced by different machines, which are expressly constructed to produce sticks of one or the other type.
As an alternative, and in accordance with the U.S. Pat. No. 4,265,073 of the applicants, for example, both types of sticks may be produced using the same machine.
In the case of this machine, the individual products are firstly wrapped while being conveyed by a rotary wrapping wheel and are than removed from the latter and inserted, one after the other, within the axial peripheral recesses of a conveyor wheel designed to contain, within each recess, a number of products which is equal to the number of products forming the stick. The product groups formed in this way are then removed from this conveyor wheel and introduced successively into the peripheral recesses of a wrapping wheel.
In the case of the machine in question, the conveyor and wrapping wheels are supported by a column resting on the base of the machine itself, whose position may be adjusted with respect to the wrapping wheel. Consequently, the conveyor wheel may be brought into two different zones, in order to obtain one or the other type of stick, of the wheel for wrapping the individual products, in which zones the products themselves may be removed from the wrapping wheel and introduced into the conveyor wheel in an arrangement which is either flat or which intersects a horizontal plane.
The machine described above, although operationally successful, is very complex and costly as a result of the use of the column moving freely on the base of the machine and which may be displaced with respect to the latter, the adjustment and guide means for the displacement of this column, and the inevitable complications linked to the motorization of wrapping and conveyor wheels whose mutual positions may be varied.